Template Designer

The Template Designer lets you insert Mail Merge bookmarks into the template using drag and drop (D&D). These Mail Merge bookmarks get their value when a document is created using a 4TOPS Mail Merge Product. Load XML button is used to pick up an xml representation  of your data source. In normal use (starting from Mail Merge menu in your database) the xml-file has been pre-selected, so you can ignore it. The menu and toolbars on the right are the complete set available in Word.

 The Template Designer supports the following behaviors:

• Insert complete object with everything below it in one go (e.g. D&D Form "Orders")
• Insert table-like structure (e.g. D&D "Orders Subform")
  • creates Word table as above
  • start the Select Fields dialog to determine which columns to include
  • note that it automatically adds the summary field Order Subtotal
• Insert individual field  (e.g. D&D "ShipName")
  • note that if you press the + left of the field the tree expands to let you insert the field, its label, or both.
• Insert individual field from table-like structure. This will Mail Merge with the first record of the subform
• Under 'Special' you will find two fields that you can use for refined formatting of for example address blocks
  • Optional space is used if it is not sure if a Field has a value. It shows a space only if the fields directly left and right of this field both are not empty. An example would be [Titel][][Firstname] [Sirname]. If Firstname is absent this would prevent getting two spaces between Title and Sirname.
  • Optional Carriage Return in similar case would enter a newline only if the fields directly left and right of this field both are not empty. An example would be

[Addressline][
][Addressline2] 
[City].

If Addressline2 is absent this will prevent getting an empty line between Addressline and City.